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Page 3 of 4
An anti-abortion protester gets carried into the paddy wagon at a protest in Atlanta.
When President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Entrances Act (FACE), making it a federal crime to engage in violent or disruptive behavior at abortion clinics in May 1993, Dreste took it as a declaration of war. Dreste wrote an op-ed for the Post-Dispatch from jail, questioning why his people were being thrown in jail while "militant homosexuals invade church services and spread AIDS-infected blood in legislative chambers, all the while being cheered on by the left for standing up for their causes."
After FACE became law, Dreste and other pro-lifers knew their ability to persuade women to turn around had been significantly compromised. Instead they decided to terrorize abortion providers. Bullet-proof vests and police escorts became the norm for women's clinic employees, following the 1993 murder of David Gunn, an abortion provider in Florida. Days after Gunn's murder, Dreste made a new sign for one of the doctors who rubbed him the wrong way at Hope Clinic: "DO YOU FEEL UNDER THE GUNN?"
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| Still at it: This sign was hung on a post outside the Planned Parenthood building in Central West End in 2008. |
In 1994, Dreste organized a convention in St. Louis for anti-abortion activists like him who would not commit to the national pro-life movement's edict to practice "nonviolence" (a wave of murders and violence wasn't very good PR for a movement that was trying to mainstream). At the convention, Dreste unveiled what would later be dubbed the "Wanted" poster, which showed a photograph of an abortion provider in Kansas City, who flew out to St. Louis to practice once a month, with the words "GUILTY of Crimes Against Humanity" written below. The poster listed the doctor's home and work addresses, enumerated his "crimes" and then, in a bold black font, issued a $500 reward. The posters flooded telephone polls and mailboxes across St. Louis.
